Dissecting pay-for-play in college sports

Photo courtesy of Sports Illustrated

            The importance of collegiate athletics in our country is something unique to America.  In other countries collegiate sports are recreational and not used as a source of profit for universities.  However, in the United States, college sports are nearly as popular as their professional counterparts and in some areas more popular.  This popularity, particularly in men’s basketball and football, brings in millions of dollars for large universities.  However, other than scholarship money, the players don’t get to see that money.  The absence of pay for college athletes has created a schism among sports fans.  Some fans go to extremes, believing college football is a form of modern day slavery, with a large, poor population of black males making a small population of white males rich.  The question many sports fans are struggling with is whether or not athletes should be paid, but this question is more complex than a simple yes or no answer.  Which athletes should be paid; by whom should they be paid; and how much they should be paid are all questions that need to be answered if a pay-for-play system is to be instituted by the NCAA. 

            One of the reasons the pay-for-play system has been opposed is because people want to see some sort of athletic purity in college athletics.  However the fans, to assuage their fears, create this false purity.  Fans argue college athletes are playing ‘for the love of the game’ as opposed to their professional equivalents who are only playing to get rich (Wendel).  When these fans see the words “college athletes being paid” their instinct reaction is that these athletes will be paid millions of dollars, not try hard, and thus dilute the level of play.  However most pay-for-play models involve paying the college athletes a small stipend, therefore paying college athletes won’t contaminate the sports (Wendel).

Even if the players were paid large amounts of money, the environment would not be adulterated more than it has been already.  Players are often paid large amounts of money illegally already.  In the 1980’s 13 Southern Methodist University football players were paid a total of $61,000 over the course of a year (Matula).  More recently in the 2000’s a ponzi-schemer, Nevin Shapiro, paid University of Miami football players upwards of $267,100 over the course of a decade (Robinson).  Shapiro gave the players money straight up and paid for meals, cars, jewelry, and prostitutes for the players.  These payments show that the purity of college sports has already been tampered with.  Players are receiving benefits to sign with and perform well at a specific school.  If the NCAA opted to pay players directly the payments could be regulated and controlled.  This would mean colleges would pay athletes in the form of money or increased stipends for food.

            A reason in favor of paying college athletes is that often times, these athletes do not have enough money even for food.  Tim Wendel recounts a story of Chris Webber, a former University of Michigan college basketball player, in an article supporting giving players a stipend; “Chris Webber stops by a take-out place for lunch in 1992. He cannot afford his original order though, after counting the last of his change” (Wendel).  It is unreasonable for universities to be making millions of dollars from athletic programs while athletes who are responsible for those profits cannot afford to buy a lunch meal or tickets for a family member to watch a postseason game.  Many players have reported their family members don’t have the money to fly to games or buy tickets.  Gary Clark, a basketball graduate from Wake Forest acknowledges the importance of a scholarship when he says, “I know we are getting a scholarship, but some folks don’t have cash to get something to eat when the school cafeteria is closed” (Ford).  His recognition that a scholarship is valuable, just not in all of the ways a collegiate athlete needs, shows that there is a need to offer financial assistance to students outside of education. 

The education many college football and basketball players receive is also different from the average student.  Athletes are often not allowed to choose their majors and do not have to do the same amount of classwork as non-athlete students in order to receive the same grade.  Both of these things diminish the value of a scholarship.  Amy McCormick, a law professor at Michigan State University, says that, “Athletes don’t have free choice of what major they take if the classes conflict with practice schedules.  That’s one fact that flies in the face of the idea that they’re primarily students and secondarily athletes” (Cooper).  If athletes don’t have access to specific classes or majors, then they do not have access to the same education as other students.  Along with not being able to take all the classes many collegiate athletes don’t have time to do the work for classes.  So, universities and professors will pass athletes even if they have not done the required work.  In a New York Times article a professor at Auburn University was fired because he was teaching a course that did not meet workload requirements and was filled with football players, (Thamel).  Because athletes do not have much time outside of practice, coaches encourage them to take easier, less time consuming classes further diminishing the monetary value of their scholarships.  Because this value of an athlete’s scholarship is diminished it might make sense for them to receive some form of compensation.

            The job of a student-athlete is not to be a student, but rather to be an athlete.  Robert McCormick, husband of Amy McCormick and also a professor at Michigan State believes that, “young men playing major football and basketball are not there primarily for an education.  They’re primarily there to win football games and basketball games and perform well” (Cooper).  Being good at football or basketball is the player’s job and the McCormick’s are arguing that football and basketball players at major schools should be considered as employees under federal law.  According to the government, there are three tests to consider someone an employee: a) the right of others to control a person’s activities b) whether that person is compensated and c) if that person is economically dependent on that compensation.  The McCormick’s believe these athletes qualify as an employee because coaches control much of the lives of athletes, athletic scholarships qualify as compensation and many players are dependent on these scholarships for food and shelter (Cooper).  If these collegiate athletes were to be considered employees under law they would be paid at a value set by the market.  Bill Plaschke, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, argues that the major basketball and football programs would outbid each other for players until salaries were out of control (Plaschke).  This illustrates the problem with creating a free market for these players: universities would spend too much money on athletes, depleting funds for less important sports and other departments.  Another problem with creating this free market is whether it should apply to all athletes or only male athletes who play basketball and football.

            There is a major discrepancy between the amount of money different athletic programs bring in.  In 2010 Men’s basketball teams in the NCAA earned a total of $240 million, but all of the Women’s basketball teams lost $109.7 million (Eichelberger).  So under a pay-for-play system should the athletes who do not produce money receive the same amount as those who do? Based on the fact that lots of athletes, regardless of if their sport produces money, need food they should.  However, there is room in between receiving the same amount of money and one group not receiving money at all.

            Although universities should not use the open market principle through paying college athletes, this system is not always inappropriate.  Along with TV revenue, Universities and the NCAA make millions of dollars off of sponsorships, jersey sales, and video games.  Tim Wendel writes of Chris Webber, “Back out on the street he nods at a replica of his jersey hanging in a store window.  Webber knows he will never see a cent from its sale.  ‘How is that fair? I mean, how is that fair? Will you tell me that? (Wendel).  While it makes sense to regulate paying players to avoid depleting university funding, it does not make sense with jersey sales because outside sources will pay for the jerseys.  A.J. Green, a football player from University of Georgia was suspended four games for selling his jersey for $1,000 while the University of Nebraska auctioned off their quarterback, Taylor Martinez’ jersey for $1,000 as well (Ford).  Green’s jersey was valuable because of what he had accomplished on the football field.  Therefore he should be able to sell his jersey too.  This type of pay wouldn’t come from the universities either; outside spenders who wanted to buy a jersey would be using their own money.  As the free market goes, there will be a large majority of collegiate athletes who cannot make a large profit from jersey sales or selling memorabilia; but if a swimmer wants to sell his or her bathing suit for 10$ that should be fine as well.  The NCAA doesn’t want athletes to be able to sell their jerseys or earn profits from the jerseys colleges sell because that would significantly cut into their profit.  The athletes should also be allowed to make money from sponsorships for similar reasons.  A main obstacle is that if individual athletes looked for sponsorships, each university would lose all of their sponsorship money.  But again, sports sponsors such as Nike, Reebok, Under Armor, and Adidas are only interested in being sponsors because of the value the players have created.  The basic idea of creating a free market in any aspect of college athletics is not realistic because colleges will not want to compete with each other more than they already do to recruit players or lose profits that go to the players.  However, increasing financial support via a stipend is realistic and achievable in the near future.

            Because of these reasons I am in favor of a small stipend to compensate players and make sure they have money to spend around campus.  The stipend should be somewhere in between $5,000 and $15,000.  In between those numbers it will be a sliding scale based on how much each program makes for the college and the hours put in by the athletes.  By keeping the salaries controlled and not too high, the wholesomeness of college sports will remain.  Athletes will still be motivated and the form in which colleges transfer money will also be more wholesome.  In addition to this, a capped ‘salary’ will mean there is enough money for all athletes to be paid, not just those who produced money for the university.  However, those who are a part of big money programs like football and basketball will make more money.  On top of that football and basketball stars will have the viability to auction off their jerseys or other personal memorabilia.  Increased financial support will regulate how universities pay athletes, alleviate many of the stresses of being a poor college student on campus, and finally give the athletes a tiny portion of the millions of dollars they are earning for men in suits.  As college basketball and college football continue to grow and earn more and more money, eventually that money needs to trickle down to its producers, the players.

Works Cited

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